On the social media site formerly known as Twitter, Tom Marazzo explains his objections to the ever-expanding use of “land acknowledgements”:
Let me break this down clearly so you can better understand why these mandated Land Acknowledgements are offensive to me.
They imply inherited guilt
A Land Acknowledgement usually frames the land I live and work on as “stolen”. Even if it does not say the words directly, the message is that I am benefiting from a theft. I served my country for 25 years, I have paid my taxes, raised my family responsibly, and built a life honestly. It cuts against my sense of fairness and justice to be told I must carry guilt for actions taken by people hundreds of years ago. I will not accept accountability for the past when I had no part in it.They ignore my contribution
I have invested decades of service in the military, in my education, in my community, and in my family. These acknowledgements do not recognize those sacrifices, nor those of my ancestors who also built and defended this country. Instead, they imply my very presence is illegitimate. That denies the legitimacy of my life’s work and my family’s role in helping build this nation.They make reconciliation into a ritual of shame
A healthy society should face the past with honesty. But what I see is not dialogue or shared responsibility. It is a scripted performance that demands I accept a label like “colonizer”, whether or not it reflects who I am. Rather than bringing people together, it divides by assigning one group permanent guilt and another permanent victimhood. That is not reconciliation. It is coerced shame.They erase complexity
History in Canada is complicated. Many settlers and Indigenous peoples lived, worked, and fought together. There were injustices, but also cooperation, intermarriage, and shared struggles. Long before Europeans arrived, Indigenous groups also fought among themselves, sometimes brutally, with violence and cruelty toward rival tribes. No group in history is free from wrongdoing. Yet the Land Acknowledgement format reduces this reality to a one-sided story of “oppressors vs. oppressed”, which is neither fair nor accurate.They are being mandated
Perhaps the strongest reason I find them offensive is that these acknowledgements are not voluntary. They are imposed in workplaces, schools, and public events as if they were civic duties or loyalty oaths. Refusing to participate often brings social or professional penalties. That strips away personal agency and turns what could have been a gesture of respect into a forced confession.So my reaction is not irrational. These acknowledgements conflict with my principles of fairness, personal responsibility, and earned legitimacy. They demand I accept guilt I do not bear, while ignoring the contributions my family and I have made. They also erase the truth that no people, Indigenous or otherwise, lived without conflict or wrongdoing in the past.
The first time I encountered a “land acknowledgement” in person was at my son’s university graduation ceremony. I assumed, as the university had a major First Nations study program, that this was something only done there … but now it’s hard to find any public gathering in Canada that doesn’t have the opening cultural cringe and ritual humiliation ceremony to start the event.
Worship of the Primitive is an essential belief among the woke.
Mortification of our civilization is a ritual of pennance.
But every time I look at the real accomplishments of aboriginal people I think, “There’ll be no stopping these guys once they discover the wheel. Give ’em another thirty or forty thousand years, and they’ll be stylin’for sure.”
JWM
Comment by jwm — October 2, 2025 @ 10:29